The Last Stand
by grumblingFBIspy
Summary: Genius and insanity were always separated by a thin line. After the war forces Harry to cross that line, he finds himself exiled. As forgotten terrors reemerge to wreak havoc on Britain all hopes fall, once more, upon the fallen hero. Insane!Dark!Harry
1. Prologue

**THE INSANITY OF HARRY POTTER**

**Summary :** Insanity and genius were always separated by a thin line. When the war forces Harry to cross that line, he finds himself exiled. As forgotten terrors reemerge to wreak havoc on Britain all hopes fall, once more, upon the fallen hero. Insane!Dark!Harry

The previous version of this story came under some criticism for not incorporating Harry till so late in the story. Considering that even after his brief introduction I wouldn't be able to work him into the piece till at least a few chapter later, I realized that I had to make a change - it **is **a Harry-centric story after all. So I spent a large chunk of time reworking the story in my head and finally came up with this. The story was revamped enough to warrant a change in title, so for those who were disappointed by the lack of Harry last time around - hopefully you'll give it another shot. I hope all of you enjoy the new (hopefully better) story.

Please review. I write for the reviews and the number I got last time around was seriously discouraging, and after spending so much time redoing the story, it would be nice to hear what all of you think about it.

Cheers,  
Bittersweet

_**Prologue**_

General Ronald Weasley sighed as he crumpled up another parchment and threw it in the general direction of the fireplace. It joined countless other similarly crumpled parchments in littering the carpeted floor. Ink stains on his hands and a few broken quills on his desk combined to paint the picture of a man feverishly, but fruitlessly, working towards some goal.

The war had destroyed many promising lives and cut several blossoming friendships at the bud. It was these friendships that Ron was trying to heal. But after ten years with nary a letter, he found it near impossible to reignite the spark that sustained the camaraderie.

As he towards the window of his plush corner office – being the Head of the Department of Magical Law Enforcement had its perks – he felt a wave of melancholy him. He wondered what could have been had Voldemort simply not existed. The lives and relationships that could have been saved... a few personal cases struck a still raw chord within him.

A disjointed hoot pulled him out of his reverie and he waited for the oncoming owl.

Ron's eyebrows rose as he beheld the bedraggled appearance of the owl as it swooped through the window. His mild surprise soon turned into undisguised horror as he slowly saw the true extent of the owl's injuries.

One wing was shattered beyond repair and its lower jaw was simply missing. It had evidently been flying on someone's magic. It also seemed to have something inscribed upon it... in blood.

The rough, unsteady script revealed itself, upon close inspection, to be the word Timothy.

Once it reached its destination, the magic left its body, and the poor owl collapsed on the table in front of Ron. A small phial containing some silvery substance rolled out of its talon and stopped near the edge of the table.

Ron cautiously stared at it for a few moments before pulling his wand out and performing a few cursory curse detection spells on it.

When the initial spells revealed nothing, he pulled out a few delicate instruments from one of his shelves and started mumbling under his breath. Apparently satisfied, he rose and moved towards a cupboard hidden in the recesses of his office and pulled out a pensieve.

He knew that nothing cursed could get through the Ministry's wards but over a decade of constant war would burn an unhealthy amount of paranoia on even the most innocent of minds. And Ron had hardly ever been innocent.

He settled the pensieve in a corner of his large, oak desk and poured the silvery memory contained within the phial into it. Without much further ado, he submerged his head into the swirling fluid and felt the real world dissolve around him as he journeyed into the memory.

_He watched as a short, stocky and wholly unremarkable man, whom he assumed was Timothy, trudged through the dense forest. The canopy overhead permitted only limited sunlight through but Ron could easily make out how cautious his steps were._

_The shorter trees spread their branches outwards and formed a thick, thorny interlinking mesh between the larger trees. The thorns had worn Timothy's hands raw and bloody as he had fought his way through them._

_Insects buzzed loudly from every which direction and birds chirped happily even as the rustling underbrush announced the presence of small scampering animals._

_The scene would almost have seemed idyllic had one not seen how harried Timothy was. The tension hung thick in the air around him. All of a sudden something above started howling, apparently sensing the presence of a large predator. A loud roar acted as confirmation and shattered the jungle's tranquillity._

_Timothy's hand jumped to a nasty wound on his side. Judging by his unsteady and unfamiliar handling of his wand, it was clear that Timothy was a poor wizard. Ron could easily imagine how a beast could have got through his guard and attacked him before he could muster any form of defence._

_Another roar echoed between the trees. As he spun around searching for its source, Timothy crashed headfirst into a nearby tree. His impact and subsequent yell upset a nesting vulture and it cawed angrily as it hopped to another tree and stared greedily down at the hapless man._

_Clearly unnerved, Timothy illuminated the area with a red flash as he cursed the vulture. It flew away with an indignant squawk._

_The birds retreat seemed to embolden Timothy and he grew in confidence and stature as he breathed a deep sigh of relief. Ron sighed, Timothy was obviously unaware that he had just shone a spotlight upon himself. Everything in the forest now knew where he was._

_A serpentine hiss wormed its way through the trees and suddenly the jungle, once teeming with noise became deathly silent. A strangled yelp and whimper broke the suffocating silence before it once more blanketed the area._

_What could possibly be more terrifying to the denizens of the jungle than, and apparently kill, the earlier beast?_

_Timothy's face turned white as he tightly gripped his wand and he backed into a tree, his earlier confidence all but gone. Droplets of sweat started to trickle down his forehead and a nervous trembling wracked his body._

_There was silence for a few more moments before a haunting whistle filled the air. Somewhere in the distance the dense foliage had worked its way off the ground and was jerking around in erratic spirals. The whistling seemed to emanate from there as the moist leaves vibrated in the humid air._

_The disturbance spread outwards and soon they were surrounded by the tornado of leaves. The annoying, persistent noise numbed their ears even as the surprisingly sharp leaves tore at Timothy's exposed skin._

_Then, suddenly the leaves fell as one. Timothy's fear knew no bounds as he wildly spun about, trying desperately to find the __thing responsible._

_Uneven, but confident footsteps sounded and echoed through the trees, thus masking their true origin. Their volume gradually increased in intensity and Timothy slowly slid to the bottom of the tree, landing in a foetal position, his hands clutching at his head._

_His mouth dropped wide open, too stunned to release any noise as the sounds' source became clear. An abomination of a man limped into view. The sparse light filtering through the canopy overhead barely illuminated the man and only served to make him all the more terrifying._

_Harry Potter's face was marred by an enormous, red, knotted scar. It stood at least an inch out of his skin and ran from his left forehead through the eye, which was milky white, and curled into his mouth, permanently giving him a gruesome sneer. Two smaller white scars ran parallel to the large one. His silvery hair, streaked with what looked like dried blood, was tangled and knotted and fell slightly past his ears._

_Harry's one good eye, still vibrantly green, stared cruelly at Timothy as he struggled to form words. "Searching for the scar, Timothy?" he whispered._

_Timothy violently shook his head, terrified that Harry thought he was mocking his scars._

_"It faded over time," Harry said wistfully, as thought longing for those days. "But.. but but.. I've got __new scars? See! Now I'm even __**more** recognizable eh?"_

_Timothy tried to ignore the insanity bubbling through Harry's eye as he opened his mouth to try and speak, only to snap it shut in terror as Harry raised his left hand. The hand and forearm looked badly decayed, as though there was only blackened skin left covering the bones. The emaciated arm ended in sharp obsidian nails._

_"Uh uh uhhh…" he snarled as he absently stroked Timothy's mouth with his hand. "I have only one rule you see… **No talking!**"_

_Timothy's eyes widened as Harry's skeletal hand started to glow a sickly yellow color. His eyes rolled back in pure pain and all his neurons fired as his lower jaw was literally ripped from his skull._

_Harry smiled as he dropped the jaw and watched it roll on the forest floor until it came to rest next to a rock. "Don't you see how much better this is? Now you can't scare the animals away with all your noise," he said happily._

_'**Enervate!**' Harry thought and watched as Timothy who had been slowly passing out with the pain popped back into consciousness._

_"We can't have you going to sleep now can we? No no **no**… You came all the way here to give me a message. Don't you think it would be rude if you didn't deliver it? After all you've already gone traipsing through __**MY** jungle!" Harry roared the last two words out._

_"So.... once again.... **WHY**?"_

_Terror clouded Timothy's eyes as he realized he wouldn't be able to answer Harry's questions. He struggled to move, but Harry's force of will rendered him immobile. Harry gazed at him curiously for a few minutes before breaking out into peals of laughter. Even his laughter was twisted and abnormal. It sounded more like a mockery of laughter than actual laughter._

_"You were actually trying to talk? __**My**… you __**are** stupid. It's called legilimency Timothy. Did you never wonder how I knew your name?" Ignoring his feeble attempt at an answer, Harry once again dove into Timothy's mind, making sure to cause him as much pain as he possibly could._

_Timothy's helpless spasming suddenly stopped. Then without warning, Harry started assaulting him. He broke Timothy's arm and burned a hole through his thigh, steaming ears and rapidly reddening skin indicated that his blood had started to boil._

_Terror and pain were burnt into his eyes and his shattered mouth was forever open in its silent screams. All of this was scant consolation to Harry as he slashed into Timothy's mind once more._

_Just as suddenly as his appalling assault had started it ended. A smile managed to turn Harry's mutilated face even more vicious._

_"It's rude to send a wizard to deliver a message you know… very demeaning. We have owls for a reason, noble creatures that they are." He looked carefully at Timothy and suddenly his good eye started rolling with glee. "Well if they sent a wizard, it obviously means they don't have enough owls. I think I'll do them a favour."_

_He raised his wand and concentrated for a moment before drawing two circles in the ground and roughly connecting them with an arrow. "__**Convoco vi rut noctua**." Loud snapping and ripping noises tore through the silence that succeeded Harry's spell and Timothy was slowly and painfully transformed into an owl._

_With another wave of his wand the owl was formed to jump of the ground and land softly on his shoulder. He looked at the odd owl, it had no lower beak and one of its wings dangled below, near its feet, for a minute before happily saying, "You know, I once had an owl myself. Her name was Hedwig, wonderful little creature. You really should aspire to be like her, Timothy."_

The memory slowly faded and Ron found himself drifting back to reality, still in shock by the sheer brutality of what he had just seen.

Before Ron was once again embraced by reality, he felt himself being roughly jerked back into the memory. Startled, he tried to fight against the overwhelming force – pensieve memories ended slowly, they never brought you back once they were finished.

Harry's bastardized face slowly swam into his vision, till it covered his entire consciousness. A vicious snarl, enhancing the permanent snarl his scars anyway emblazoned upon his face, served to make the vision even more ominous.

"I wonder.... do _you _like what I've become, Ron?" Harry whispered. "My... my scars – _no_! Never mind my scars... I just _had _to let you know that if anymore wizards come to my jungle – _MY ­_jungle, I'll have to be as hospitable to them as I was to good old Timothy!

"Why, I might even end up being _nicer_. Maintain appearances and all that," the snarl slowly faded and a smile struggled to replace it, somehow contriving to make him even scarier.

"Infact... _infact... _Now that I really _think _about it... you've never _once _visited me. Why is that Ron? I get so _lonely_!!

"You think about that Ron... My home is your home, even if it's not the other way round..." his voice trailed off darkly.

"Until next time, I leave you with this present." Harry finished vindictively as Ron's head exploded with pain as the memory detonated inside him. Maniacal cackling echoed softly in his head as he drifted out of conscious.


	2. The Battle of Diagon Alley

**Chapter 1 - The Battle of Diagon Alley**

Screams pervaded the air, bright spells dazzled the eye and bodies and debris littered the ground. Not since the time of Voldemort had the British Isles known such devastation, as people ran through the streets in utter terror.

Only five minutes before the alley was a picture of tranquility, as happy families went about their business. One of the patrolling aurors had suddenly keeled forward and collapsed in a heap on the ground. A witch had bent down to try to help him and was catapulted twenty feet back through the window of Flourish & Blott's. A gong echoed through the street and the first scream was heard. Soon wizards in blue robes were appearing everywhere and firing lethal curses at will. In the ensuing panic, no one noticed that most of the aurors were already dead, all lying face first in a pool of their own blood.

The remaining aurors struggled to regroup, shielding themselves in the crowd. Slowly but surely, they converged at Flourish & Blott's. One of them drew an intricate rune in the air and rapidly twirled her wand around it, brow furrowed in concentration, and the broken shards of glass levitated of the ground and gradually morphed into a whirlwind, with the ten aurors at its centre.

"I'll buy us some time with this; we need to warn General Ron," she grunted through the effort of maintaining her deadly spell. "There is simply no way we can hold them off, we've already lost more than half the –" Her eyes widened as a crackling blue ball of magic hurtled towards them, exploding upon impact with the glass, vaporizing a large chunk of it.

"Your little tornado won't last us long Jessica," Lieutenant Towers said distractedly as he tried to fully assess the situation - the death of Captain Welsh had left him the highest ranking auror in Diagon Alley. Coming to a decision he snapped to attention, "Owen! Use your emergency portkey, and warn the general… no arguments lad," he said cutting Owen off. "Jessica, at my signal direct your tornado at the terrorists, using that as cover, we'll move to eagle formation. Good luck then."

Towers gave his signal and just like that all hell broke loose. Jessica stopped twirling her wand and sharply pointed it at the largest concentration of blue robes. The glass shards rocketed towards the terrorists and ripped into two of them before the rest realized. One of them contemptuously flicked his wand and the glass tore into the terrified civilians. Using the distraction, the aurors split up, trying to take cover behind buildings. An explosion rocked Flourish & Blott's and a particularly large chunk of rock crushed Jessica, narrowly missing two other aurors who were drenched in a mist of Jessica's blood.

Owen jumped away from the group and shoved his hand inside his robes, grabbing at his portkey. Before he managed to though, a sickly green spell arced through the air and slammed into his back, knocking him off his feet. As he struggled to get up, he glimpsed the hem of a set of blue robes. He fearfully raised his head and saw a giant of a man sneering down at him, "До свидания маленькое одно"*. The terrorist raised his wand and opened his mouth, but was cut off as Owen grabbed his portkey and was whisked away and he was simultaneously flattened by a rock. Towers grinned down at the body before grimly running back into combat. He didn't make it far before he collapsed, a knife embedded in his throat.

"You surely did not expect to kill one of us without consequences Lieutenant?" A terrorist asked with a thick Russian accent, Towers attempted a reply but his ruined throat only gurgled. The terrorist gave Towers' head a mighty kick before moving on, as Towers slowly suffocated. The battle was only just beginning.

* * *

Vladimir and Dmitry lead their teams quietly into Diagon Alley; every member had a blue robe hidden underneath their cover robes. Each wore a different nondescript robe, carefully stitched not to attract attention, but none of the robes had any interwoven spells that might tip a watchful auror off. The blue robe had been specially designed for this particular mission. The Guild had eliminated a Russian terrorist outfit a decade or so ago as part of a mission. These robes were identical copies of the ones the "Месть", down to the "Месть" insignia on the right breast, and the ranking stripes on the left shoulder. The Guild did everything in its power to remain out of the limelight. The Guildmaster had said he was keen on reigniting Europe's mutually self-destructive rivalry.

Dmitry gazed at Diagon Alley as he walked in. It was exactly the way he remembered it when he had visited in twenty years ago. The paved walkway twisted around the haphazardly placed buildings. Hundreds of happy wizarding families thronged the alley, and the alley was abuzz with their chatter. He sighed and got back to work, with a few gestures his team of ten broke up, moving apparently at random, but all of them slowly inched their way towards Gringotts and once inside quickly took up their prearranged positions.

Vladimir's ten men positioned themselves in shadows and quietly cast a modified version of the disillusionment charm on themselves and appeared, to the naked eye, to dissolve. The Guildmaster had said that the auror's charms would not be able to detect it. All twenty two men were connected via charmed gems, on behind the ear, and one on the throat, so on Vladimir's whispered command they silently moved next to the patrolling aurors and unsheathed their daggers. The aurors' uniform was imbued with potent runic magic, for both protection and detection of curses. A dagger to the throat on the other hand would be quick and silent: eleven would be taken out without any retaliation.

Vladimir slashed an auror's throat open and watched with satisfaction as he dropped, dead before he hit the ground. The witch nearby unfortunately happened to be in the wrong place at the wrong time, a simple banishment charm finished her off. Vladimir muttered another simple charm and a gong sounded across the alley, another trademark of Месть. The rest of his team took the signal and having already dispatched of their respective aurors, removed their invisibility charms and started rapidly hurling curses around the street, intent on using the confusion to create maximum damage. Vladimir struggled to find the remaining aurors, but ironically the panic he created served as sufficient camouflage for the aurors, shrugging he commanded his team to gather together to continue their devastation.

"Dmitry, all the aurors have been called to the alley, you may begin your operation," Vladimir relayed the information to his twin and turned back to the battle, where a cone of glass drew his attention. He drew his wrist as far back as it would go and watched as a crackling ball of magic grew on it before swinging his arm and throwing the ball towards the glass. The displeasure showed on his face when the spell didn't manage to get through the glass. He angrily barked commands telling his team where the chief targets were, his anger faded as a plan formed in his head. Concentrating, he carved an intricate rune on the ground with his wand, and drawing upon his energy to complete one of the more complicated illusion spells. He watched smiling as dozens of blue robed images popped into existence all around the alley. The deadly wall of flying glass hurtled towards the images, and Vladimir had to alter his spell slightly to make it look as though it had torn through a few of them.

Before the aurors could successfully use the distraction to take cover Vladimir's apprentice, Dominik, sent out a sizzling brown spell that curved past his intended target and obliterated the shop behind the auror. His snarl eased as the rubble crushed the auror anyway. Noticing one of the aurors making a dash for it he whispered, "_penitus crudus_". This time his aim was true, as the hemorrhage curse knocked the auror off his feet. The curse was essential, as it would give the auror enough time to report to his seniors before he succumbed to the bleeding. He ran near the auror, ready to complete his final task. "До свидания маленькое одно," Dominik muttered satisfied, only to look up, stunned, as a block of concrete the size of his torso careered towards him.

Vladimir yanked his dagger out of the lieutenant's throat and searched the alley for his next victim. The civilians were mostly all either dead or maimed, or had fled by now, so the battlefield was more or less clear. Unfortunately, everyone other than Vladimir's images had taken cover inside some building or the other. He reopened his communication channel and asked for status reports, all the while walking in the centre of the paved pathway, taking special care to tread on those yet to die.

A little girl was frantically running around the alley crying, "Mommy! Mommy!!!" Her eyes were bloodshot and her face tearstained, a sight that would have melted the hardest of hearts. Vladimir paused and seemed to battle with himself before he raised his wand and called out to the little girl. He sensed the approaching killing curse before he saw it, and with a flick on his wand sent the ill-fated girl spiraling into its path. Vladimir sighed, his eyes void of all emotion, he really did hate some aspects of his job. His ruse had worked though, two aurors hidden inside Eeylops had revealed themselves. He conjured a shield just in time, as two bone breaking hexes sped towards him rebounded off his shield and fizzling into nothingness. He assessed the two aurors and a feral smile grew on his face as he recognized a challenge. He cast a stronger shield and ignored the flashes of curses bombarding it as he pulled back his sleeve revealing a large rune than disappeared into his robes. He touched it with his wand and watched as it started to radiate golden light, engulfing him it its brilliance. The light slowly dulled revealing elaborate golden lines tracing their way around Vladimir's exposed skin. The aurors watched, stunned, as he leapt a good ten feet in the air before bounding towards them with the agility of a werewolf.

The obscure rune of _Karthun Razad_ gave its bearer the physical prowess of a werewolf in exchange for intricate spells a wizard could cast. The Guildmaster had shown Vladimir and Dmitry how to perform the ritual as a reward for a mission. The blood ritual was incredibly dangerous and only one in ten survived it, the smallest ritual resulted in immediate death. One had to carve the runes on their skin using first a werewolf's claw and then a vampire's fang. Both the claw and the fang had to be removed on a full moon the night before the ritual. All said and done the ritual took four continuous, sleepless days to perform perfectly and normally at least a month to recover from. The results though, were there for all to see.

In three leaps Vladimir had crashed through Eeylops display window landed on one of the aurors. He grabbed the auror's head with both hands and twisted it harshly to a side. The resounding snap of the spinal cord breaking echoed ominously in the shop. Vladimir looked up from the dead auror, his runes eerily glowing in the dark shop to see the auror casting compulsion charms on the owls. His eyes widened as the owls screeched collectively and flew towards him, talons out and ready to rip into his flesh. Vladimir cursed under his breath, the auror had struck lucky, in his current state he would not be able to effectively defend himself from spells. That was his last coherent thought as the first owl descended on him. What followed was a flurry of wings, talons, flailing arms and indignant squawks, as utter confusion overtook the small store.

The auror tried to curse Vladimir to oblivion but found that all his spells killed the owls. Realizing the futility of casting spells, she concentrated on drawing all her power together, ready to flatten Vladimir as soon as he finished with the owls. Her mind latched onto the '_Hammer of Eden_' spell that Colonel Mortimus had once taught her, and her hand started to dance with her wand, seemingly of its own accord.

'_The Hammer of Eden_', one of the few truly 'light' spells known to wizardkind, was created by Merlin in 922 BC. Continuous use of 'dark' magic tended to leave a mark on the magic of the caster, warping it such that casting 'dark' spells became easier. Technically there was no such thing as either a purely 'dark' or a purely 'light' spell; it was merely the intent that counted. Even the killing curse, if it was intended to put down someone dying an inevitable and painful death might not pervert a wizard's magic, as the intent wasn't destructive. '_The Hammer of Eden_' had a violent reaction to the change, the more warped a wizards magic was the more damage the spell would cause. It was in effect, a purging of the deformed magic. Then pain the purging on one's magic could cause simply dwarfed anything the _Cruciatus_ could ever do, indeed before Azkaban was built, it was used on those convicted of the most heinous wizarding crimes.

When Vladimir finally killed the last owl, he found himself smothered under a veritable sea of dead owls. He knew that the auror was probably waiting for him to force his way out from under the protective cover of the thrice damned birds. Pooling all his strength together, he jumped as high as he could, leaving a trail of falling owls in his wake as he kicked off of the roof, aiming for the auror.

The auror had anticipated Vladimir's move and watched as he soared from the pyramid of dead owls towards the roof. She noted with satisfaction that a deep gash on his face was still leaking blood that his hair was matted with blood and that his robe looked held together by a single stitch. She finished the wandwork for '_The Hammer of Eden_' and a dazzling blot of pure white surged from her wand; such was the sheer force of the spell that her arm was rocked backwards.

Just as the spell was about to pass judgment on Vladimir, a loud explosion assaulted their ears and the building was rocked by the impact, the clanging of metal cages crashing to the ground further battered their ringing ears. Both the spell and its intended target veered off their respective trajectories and so the spell only glanced Vladimir before punching a hole through the roof and fading out of existence. Nevertheless, Vladimir's screams could be heard at the far end of Diagon Alley as he writhed and thrashed on the ground, attempting to fight the overwhelming tug on his magic. The auror was in no place to take advantage of the situation though, as the loud explosion had hit her particularly badly, and she was curled on the ground, her hands covering her bleeding ears. It took several minutes before either could recover, and they started to crawl towards their wands. Vladimir, due in no small part to his lupine strength and agility, reached his wand first. "_Diffindo_," he weakly intoned (it was one of the few spells he could cast in his lupine state), and his spell, though weak and poorly directed, hit her wand arm, severing the tendon and rendering it useless.

The auror started to cry, both due to the pain and the hopelessness of her situation as her wand rolled away from her outstretched arm. Vladimir struggled to his feet and deciding not to waste more of his magical energy, walked up to the helpless auror and severed her jugular, ignoring her pleas for mercy. He moved behind the wall facing the street and fell to his haunches, taking his time to recover. As he reactivated his communicator the reports started coming in: four aurors had been killed and the last was holed up in Madam Malkin's, there were no casualties on their side, but Davydenko was badly injured and would be of almost no use for the rest of the attack. Vladimir sighed and gave the all clear for Davydenko to head back and recuperate and informed them that he had taken care of the remaining aurors. Only one left, Vladimir thought with a smirk, this was proving to be too easy. It was with this confidence that he brazenly walked out into Diagon Alley, forgetting all about the auror the he had let escape.

He felt the appearance of a dozen powerful magical cores before they appeared and it was only his heightened reflexes that saved him, ten undoubtedly deadly curses converging on the spot he had been mere milliseconds ago, as a loud rumble echoed through the alley.

* * *

Ron gazed, appalled, at the ruined Diagon Alley. The once stone gray walkway was now drenched red with blood, such were the number of corpses littering the street you could walk clear through the alley without having your foot touch the actual paved stone once. Where Flourish and Blott's had once stood, now only smoking debris remained, Eeylop's was partially caved in and the area in and around it inundated with brutally maimed owls. A relentless inferno of all consuming black flames still raged in Knockturn Alley and Florean Fortescue. Everywhere he looked he saw only wreckage, even his favorite store, Quality Quidditch Supplies was a twisted mess, convoluted semi-solidified metal bars ringed the storefront, every other wall had been razed. Gringotts, however, appeared totally untouched – an anomaly that he simple could not ignore. Why would one store be so protected? How could it not have been hit by a single stray spell? A loud blast snapped him out of his reverie as he saw Madam Malkin's shudder violently as though under the influence of an earthquake before the earth swallowed it whole, leaving only a gaping chasm in its stead.

He let out a roar of pure rage and felt that very rage envelop him, as it had so often during the war – the last auror had been taking cover in Madam Malkin's. He watched as a man wearing tattered bleu robes leapt away from his colleagues' curses with inhuman agility. He snarled and fired the deadly _putesco _curse at the terrorist; the arcing luminescent purple spell only just missed its intended target saving him from the horrible fate of having his inside slowly rot. They no longer bandied about with non-lethal spells, they had long ago learned that the only way to win a war was to shelf your own feelings and fight fire with fire. A dead wizard could not come back and kill you in a future battle after all.

He looked over at the elite team he had assembled and was confident that not only would they succeed in driving back the threat, they would also return the terrorists in kind for the atrocities they had committed. His steely gaze was met by Head Unspeakable Hermione, Colonel Mortimus, Brigadier Dyer, five high ranking members of the Commando Division and the remaining three were some of Hermione's best Untouchables. The Department of Mysteries had grown substantially during the war after Ron had used his capacity as General to declare a state of Emergency, and had taken up many more responsibilities. It created a department for spies, the Invisibles and one for assassins the Untouchables among many other less significant departments. The Untouchables had never been something the Ministry was ever very proud of, but they had proved invaluable during the war, neutralizing major targets without many losses. The Commando Division had been Ron's brainchild, composed of only those who had proven themselves time and time again in warfare. Each member compulsorily had several military medals to their name; it was one of the minimum requirements. It was the army's most elite and highest paid division.

Hermione furrowed her brows in concentration as she incanted, "_ostendo sum totus_", one of the most powerful revealing spells available. Nine figures appeared in her head and she clearly enunciated the words, "_partis notitia_" and shared her view with the rest of the attacking party. Eight of them were clustered together in small store adjacent to Florean Fortescue's and the one was the astonishing agility was taking cover in the ruins of Eeylops. On Ron's signal began their deadly onslaught.

Ron conjured an apparition of white hellfire above his head, and bound it to his arms' movements. The lethal specter danced gleefully above him as he charged towards Eeylops. Mortimus ran after his uncle, twirling his wand in his hand like a baton, leaving a spiraling black trail behind. Hermione fired off spell after spell of arcane magic at the group of eight, grimly confident in the knowledge that no one would know an effective counterspell or shield. Dyer fell on one knee to brace himself as he started casting the most explosive hexes he knew; quickly deciding that augmenting Hermione's precise spells with his clumsy but powerful ones was the way to go. The confusion the explosions created would, he hoped, allow Hermione's spells to pass through unseen and unheard, thus wreaking maximum damage. The commandos took off at a sprint for the store, confident of the cover provided by Hermione and Dyer, they knew more than anyone else that the general wanted no survivors and the closer they were to the terrorists, the easier it would be to ensure than none escaped. The Untouchables quickly cleared a triangular area of bodies and blood and began carving runes onto the road, chanting in the forgotten language of Atlantis – Azad.

With a gesture of Ron's hand, the hellfire spirit arm elongated and tunneled into Eeylops front wall incinerating everything it touched. On its way back, the fiery arm ploughed into the earth, liquefying the sand. With a little help from his magic Ron leaped over the molten obstacle landing squarely on both his feet inside Eeylops. Mortimus wasn't far behind, but his agile leap didn't need any magical help. Ron saw a flicker in a corner of the shop and hurled a fireball at it only to find himself hurtling towards the molten sand via a sharp kick to the solar plexus. He had just about enough time to cast a freezing charm on himself behind he landed in the rapidly congealing sand. His charm managed to complete the solidification of the sand next to him and found himself encased in a slowly sinking translucent glass blob. He snarled and mentally cursed his recent penchant for theatrics and his mind whirled in every which direction, trying to find a way out of his current predicament.

Vladimir's right leg completed its vicious arc and landed on the ground before he was blasted into the nearest wall with a sickening crack before collapsing in a heap. Mortimus lowered his wand an spared a glance to his uncle before advancing towards the fallen Vladimir, he knew full well that his uncle would be more than able to extricate himself from his predicament. Vladimir slowly got to his feet shaking his head; _Karthun Razad _healing his crippling physical wounds. He managed to dive out of the way of a black curse that reeked of death and drew his own wand.

"_Karthun Razad_? I've never really liked it myself," Mortimus drawled as he circled Vladimir, hoping to stall till Ron rejoined the battle. Smiling as Vladimir's eyebrows shot up in confusion. "We are not ignorant you know… for example, I'm well aware that you can't cast the appropriate shield for this!" He snapped his wand, watching as the _animus inritus_ curse raced towards Vladmir, dissolving the wall in front on which he was a second ago. His eyes moved upwards as Vladimir cannoned off the wall towards him a sickly yellow spell preceding him. He stepped deftly to the side conjuring a lead wall in Vladimir's path and a transparent glass globe around himself. The yellow spell tore into the lead wall shattering it and sending deadly shrapnel everywhere, his globe protected himself but Vladimir wasn't nearly as lucky and crumpled in a bloody pile, pieces of lead embedded deep inside him. Mortimus vanished his shield and triumphantly walked towards his victim, ready to finish the job.

As he neared Vladimir, his wand raised, he felt an unexpected and quite severe pain in his gut. He looked down and he eyes widened as he saw the hilt of a dagger protruding from his abdomen. Blood started to gather in his mouth blocking off his access to oxygen, he started to violently cough spewing blood as he fell to his knees. In his shock, he dropped his wand and it rolled several paces away, finally stopping as it touched a dead owl. His eyes drifted to Vladimir, who while still nearly comatose, had apparently managed to hit him with a dagger, as attested to by the extended arm. Mortimus gathered his thoughts and his strength, as he allowed himself to fall forwards, landing on his own blood with a wet thump, wincing with pain as the dagger dug deeper into his abdomen and started to crawl towards his wand. Upon reaching his wand, he flopped onto his back and steeled himself before he placed his hand inside his gaping wound and pulled at the dagger and started screaming uncontrollably, the dagger was serrated with hooks facing backwards. He tried to suppress the bile rising in his throat as he looked at what appeared to be the greater portion of his intestines lying on the floor in from of him. He knew he didn't have enough time to fully heal himself, so he merely sealed the wound, hoping to hell that he wouldn't regret that decision too much. Satisfied that he'd treated his wound as best he could he looked up to see a visibly pale, undoubtedly from extensive blood loss, Vladimir struggle to his feet and wondered if he mirrored his adversary's pallid complexion.

Mortimus also stood, stopping to wipe the blood of his face before he leveled his wand at Vladimir who had used the reprieve to deactivate the _Karthun Razad _rune giving him full access to his magical repertoire. Mortimus was relieved to find an energizer potion in his robe that hadn't shattered and took a deep swig from it, watching as Vladimir healed himself. Before they could resume their duel both of them were distracted as a strong gust of wind buffeted them carrying with it the very distinct smell of sulphur. Both could point to only one thing – someone had performed a summoning. As one their heads turned towards Diagon Alley and they stared at the hateful creature through the cavernous holes in the wall.

Mortimus swore under his breath as he recognized the demon. The lucent purple beast had a broad torso and two arms, dangerously sharp spikes jutting out of every joint. It triangular head was framed by two grand horns, curving around themselves to point forwards, its mouth was open in its perpetual snarl and its eyes burned at intense black. The torso tapered off towards its waist ending in a narrow wisp of smoke. The demon stood purely on its magic. There could be no mistaking it, it was a soul demon. Soul demons were quite possibly some of the hardest magical creatures to destroy as they were spirits and therefore immune to most physical and magical damage. Their most frightening facet, however, was their method of feeding. They sucked the life force out of every living creature they touched, leaving only a lifeless husk behind and there was no end to the amount they could feed as the more souls they consumed, the more powerful they became. The last living community of soul demons had died millennia ago after consuming all life on their island and eventually turned on each other in their hunger. The Untouchables must have a death wish, Mortimus thought, Soul Demons were almost impossible to control. He felt the relief wash over him as the sprite moved away from him and towards the site of the other battle, they were someone else's problem now, he thought as he looked back at Vladimir.

Vladimir finished mumbling a warning to the rest of the team as Mortimus turned back to face him and Ron emerged for what Vladimir had hoped would be his glass tomb. As he pondered the ever increasing odds against him surviving, he wondered if Dmitry was faring as badly. He twirled his wand and almost nonchalantly batted the first spell away, knowing full well that the longer he fought two well trained wizards in such a small area the lower the chances of his survival, but also that should he go out, he risked inciting the wrath of the other wizards. For now, content to simply defend himself, he levitated the lead fragments that had come so close to killing them and used them to create a shimmering almost impenetrable barrier to their spells. His shield didn't last long and Ron sent on an intense wave of heat melting the lead and it fell towards him, a quick banishment charm saving him from a metallic grave.

Mortimus transfigured the liquid lead into a metal tiger and compelled it to attack him while Ron unleashed a flurry of weak but intrinsically different curses in the hopes of confusing him. Quickly realizing that he couldn't conjure a shield appropriate for each curse, he abandoned all subtlety and cast the energy consuming _maximum tutela _shield before sending conjuring a bucket of acid and hurling it at the oncoming tiger's head. The tiger whimpered plaintively as its head painfully dissolved and crashed to the ground, sliding to Vladimir's feet. He had no time to recover as a sky blue spell sizzled towards him, battering the metallic corpse he hastily levitated and turning it red hot before he dropped it watching it sizzle. Vladimir thought he noticed something strange as he dodged another sky blue spell before immersing himself in self defense once more. Mortimus' eyes darkened as he summoned a fiery whip and snapped it towards Vladimir, transforming it to a bolt of lightning at the last possible moment sending thousands of volts of pure electricity coursing through the watery screen Vladimir had summoned. His back arched in pure and unadulterated pain as the shock hit him but he maintained the presence of mind to block Mortimus' next and undoubtedly lethal curse.

As Mortimus confidently advanced the answer finally clicked in Vladimir's mind, his adversary's greatest weakness was his overwhelming overconfidence. So he prepared to be out for the count, lying on the ground and moaning unintelligibly while wordlessly summoning the rubble behind Mortimus. "Not so powerful are you now?" Mortimus asked sardonically, right before he got flattened by the oncoming rubble. As Vladimir rose, the killing curse on his lips, he suddenly realized what was missing – the general! Rather than trying to find Ron, he apparated away working under the assumption that Ron would have sneaked behind him while he was fighting Mortimus. The chance he took turned out to save his life as he missed the majority of the curse while still managed to leave a deep gash in his left calf. Soul Demon or not, the outside was far safer than inside Eeylops when he couldn't even locate his opponent and he apparated out to the street before attempting to heal his leg.

Screams pierced his ears and his saw his team scattering wildly from the soul demon's sustained onslaught, whilst also doing their level best to avoid the spells being fired at them. He counted only five moving blue robes, apparently the two remaining apprentices had fallen. He stopped at the three immobile Untouchables, all of them lost to the world as they concentrated on their chanting, keeping the Soul Demon shackled to their will. Ron and Mortimus appeared a few paces away from him and they renewed the duel with a fresh vengeance. Vladimir knew that the only way to swing that battle now, was to incapacitate the Untouchables and release the soul demon, so he slowly allowed himself to be pushed towards them.

When their duel finally reached the untouchable he knew he was left with two choices, either to try and fight off both of them or to take out one Untouchable and bare himself to any attack from Ron and Mortimus. He didn't waste any time on debating with himself, the guild would always be greater than the individual and he knew it. Time seemed to slow as he ignored the spells sweeping towards him and activated a rune on his neck and spun around, firing a simple _diffindo _at the nearest Untouchable. As the Untouchables were the source of the summoning energy they were enshrouded by its arcane magic, arcane magic that disrupted all spells that passed through it. Only the simplest of magic could pass through without being irreparably bastardized. So it was that the Untouchable's mouth opened in a silent oh before it toppled off its perch. Vladimir completed his full circle in time to see the two spells rip into his torso, easily overcoming the simple protection rune he had activated.

Ron scowled as he realized the motive behind Vladimir's sacrifice. The two remaining Untouchables would simply not be able to bind the soul demon and would most likely be consumed by the volatile magic. Why, in Merlin's name, would they try to summon a soul demon anyway? Bloody arrogant Untouchables. He made his way towards them, not sparing Vladimir's broken body a second glance, just as their extremities started to blur. Their magic was slowly being ripped away from them as the summoning rune struggled to sustain itself. Ron and Mortimus hastened to anchor themselves to the two Untouchables thus entwining their fate with that of the two Untouchables. It was undoubtedly a big risk, but also the only way they could possible save the two of them.

* * *

Hermione felt the arcane strands tying the beast to her will shatter but reacted too late to save the poor commando nearest to it. The commando yelped as the soul demon stopped chasing after the terrorists and turned on her, quickly devouring her soul leaving only the drained shell behind. Still, that left her, Dyer and five commandos to finish off the three remaining terrorists. If she could remove the soul demon from the equation, then the odds were still stacked heavily in their favor. With that plan firmly in her mind, she told the others to ignore the demon and concentrate on neutralizing the terrorists, while she fired off several killing curses at the demon, intent on using their high magical power to make her the demon's top target. She drew the demon further and further away from the battle while her mind went into overdrive trying to find a way to destroy it. The only thing she could think of was a magical vortex but with the demon rapidly closing, she didn't have the time to create one and as she felt her back press onto a wall, she wondered what she had got herself into. She needed a distraction desperately, seeing no one near, she decided her best option was to create an image and overload it with magic.

"_Speculum statua mihi_", she whispered, stressing on every alternate syllable. A Hermione no one would have been able to distinguish from the real witch shimmered into existence not far from her and walked diagonally away from her, moving towards and yet away from the demon. "_Transporto venificius_", her shoulders sagged and her knees buckled as she channeled a large portion of her magical reserves to her image, praying that the demon would take the bait. Surely enough, it sensed that the being of greater magical power was slowly walking away from it and not pressed to the wall, with a last look at Hermione it started chasing the image. Hermione took a deep breath as she steadied herself to call forth a magical vortex, she squared her feet and conjured a gem the size of her fist to act as the vortex's magical core. A real gemstone would have provided a much better hub but she had to make do with what she had. She started viciously moving her wand in very precisely disorganized arcs. Magical vortices were anomalies, they technically should not exist and this was mirrored in their conjuration, movements had to be precise but random, magic had to be given but taken back. A single error and myriad complications could arise: the vortex could be created inside one's own magical core, instead of absorbing ambient magic, magic might explosively pour from the hub, instead of the magical vortex a black hole might be conjured, the list truly was endless. It was for this reason that the spell had been buried deep inside the Department of Mysteries and had more or less been forgotten for centuries.

"_Ego precos meus magus vox_", she chanted, her dexterous fingers still directing the wand in its peculiar dance. "_Partum turbo validus_," the demon reached her image and consumed it, before turning and staring at Hermione once more. "_Concremo locus magus_," it started moving towards her letting out an inhuman wail as it felt the spiraling magical disturbance, which only drove it to move faster. "_Quod product produxi productum tellus putus_," the demon's hands clawed at the air mere inches away from her face and she shuddered at the pure malevolence smoldering in its eyes, she unconsciously tried to press herself further into the wall. It strained against the force induced by the vortex inching closer and closer before the vortex finally came into full effect swallowing the demon after it let out one last ringing wail. Hermione had no time to recover, however, as the vortex latched onto her own magic. She started frantically yelling, "_ego solvo magus sic inusm_." Through the corner of her eye she saw wizards waving their wands at her but she knew that friendly or not, the magic would never cross the vortex and reach her. "_Ego solvo magus ego accersitus_," only one more passage she thought as she felt her magical core straining against her. "_Subsisto futuris quod subsisto imbibo magus_." The vortex imploded upon itself with a soft pop and Hermione fell to her knees, a migraine of epic proportions assaulting her head.

She shakily got to her feet as Ron rushed to her but his anxiousvoice was drowned out by the overwhelming buzzing in her ears. Through her blurred vision she thought she saw three blue robes cornered and seemingly defeated. Satisfied, she felt herself embrace the blackness and fall into blissful unconsciousness.

* * *

Ron looked worriedly at Hermione, they had been through far too much for her to go out like this. There was no telling how deep her magical exhaustion was and whether she'd recover from it. He sighed and wondered how deeply the attack would wound the still recovering country, how many families would be directly and indirectly affected by it. He was only thankful that he had left the two auror squadrons behind as reserves, they had never seen a battle before and most would've been slaughtered. The battle was almost over, as it was, with the terrorists cornered and locked down – he'd requisitioned the strongest anti-apparation ward stones the ministry possessed. The terrorists had wanted a fight to the death and he had no problem giving them just that, he would not give them the satisfaction of living long enough to fully see the scope of the damage they had inflicted upon society.

A loud gong sounded in the alley and suddenly the terrorists vanished. Ron mouth fell wide open, for the first time since the war Ron was totally and utterly flabbergasted. The wards, what happened to the wards? They were the strongest in the country, the strongest ones that had ever been designed! It should have taken them at least an hour to bring it down. Ron tried apparating and found himself facing an insurmountable barrier – the wards were still up. "How in the name of Merlin's blue undies – " Ron's tirade was cut off as another gong reverberated through the alley. What this time? Ron thought as he looked around the alley searching for a new development. Then his eyes fell upon Gringotts…

The once pristine bank looked like the apocalypse had struck. The glass windows had been blown outwards, green goblin blood seeped down its stairs. The marble walls were cracked and looked like they might fall over at any moment. The inside was no better, the floor was more covered with corpses than not, on closer inspection Ron found that every goblin's mouth had a knut shoved partially inside. Nothing and no one had survived the massacre, not even the children, and there were a lot of them – it was the weekend before Hogwarts' new term started. On the bodies of all the dead innocent he swore revenge on whoever was responsible for the atrocity.

* * *

The first gong sounded and Dmitry silently cast a locking, silencing and a slight magic repelling charm on Gringotts' famous door. The plan would only work if Diagon Alley and Gringotts were totally cut off from one another. The more potent isolation and illusion ward stones had already been prepared but would be placed later. The goblin guards immediately noticed something was amiss and started looking around suspiciously. He fingered the wand in his robe but didn't draw it, not yet. He issued a brief set of commands to his men and they split up, some meeting tellers, some guards, and some proceeding up the stairs to the management offices. Time passed and Vladimir didn't issue the all clear. Every tick and tock of the bank clock pounded in his head as he grew more and more nervous, if it took much longer the guards would figure it out and it would be all downhill from there. Just as he was about to disregard their carefully crafted plan, Vladimir's voice issued from his ear gem, "Dmitry, all the aurors have been called to the alley, you may begin your operation."

He relayed the message to his team and waited for reports before proceeding. Integral to their plan was to remove all of Gringotts' many forms of communication – the distraction in Diagon Alley would only be effective if the aurors didn't get an SOS from Gringotts. When his men reported positively he flung his dagger at the nearest goblin before leveling a killing curse on the other. The killing curse had never been his favorite curse, it was slow and move it a straight line, making it easy to dodge. Contrary to popular opinion it could be blocked: physical barriers were always effective, runic protections had been proven to work and over the last few years counterspells had been devised, should the spells hit the oncoming killing curse dead on it could be made to fizzle out. However, to the average wizard there was nothing scarier that seeing the bright fluorescent green distinctive to the spell and so it was the perfect spell for Dmitry to start off with.

The flashing green light did its job as witches and wizards started to scatter wildly, interfering with the goblins' attempts at organizing their defense. The alarms went off, bathing the bank in flashing red whilst adding to the cacophony of noise and confusion. Dmitry and his team were still wearing their civilian clothes, after all, they had locked Gringotts down, it had become a death trap, and no one other than them would be leaving alive. Wearing the blue robes would be the same as painting large targets on themselves. Dmitry stood wear he was giving the guard duty a particular target and knowing how blinkered they usually were, he expected them to completely ignore everything else, thus leaving their flanks crucially exposed to his team who would then cut them down.

Sure enough Gringotts fearsome private army began to converge upon him, wizards waving their wands and goblins wielding crossbows imbued with potent magic. Dmitry ignored them as he set about placing and activating the ward stones, drawing the required stabilization runes on the ground near the doors. Just as the first wave of defense wizards neared Dmitry his team sprang into action. Curses flew through the air sizzling upon hitting their intended targets, explosions rocked the bank as the wizards were butchered like common animals. The fresh violence sparked the crowd into an even greater frenzy as they surged towards the gate as one great writhing mass, any who tripped and fell were trampled underneath. Dmitry, who had all the while calmly gone about finishing the wards, stepped back as the stampede reached him. Those first to the door were flattened against it by the seemingly endless numbers of people behind them, the sharp sound of snapping bones almost drowned out the wailing alarm before the wizards relented.

The banks customers, upon realizing that there was no exit, drew their wands to defend themselves, making their first and last fatal mistake. The goblins, not knowing who to target, opened fire on everyone. Crossbows whirred continuously as arrows whizzed through the air impaling everyone in their path, killing one sometimes even two wizards each. Scores of innocent witches and wizards perished under the onslaught while Dmitry and his team skulked in the shadows, biding their time. The customers, backed into a corner, responded the only way they knew how, by opening fire on the goblins creating a massive free-for-all. Spells and arrows raced around the building with reckless abandon, such was the density of life that almost every one of the spells and arrows claimed one. As the bodies piled up, Dmitry silently stalked towards the booths where the goblin tellers were still loyally seated, as they were instructed to do during a break in – ironically to prevent the buildup of confusion.

He whispered, "_amiculum mihi pre umbria_," and magically cloaked himself in shadows. Now, even if he emerged from the shadow, the shadows would meld and move so that he remained enrobed in them. He stealthily moved behind each teller and quietly slit their throats, quietly lowering their heads to the table, the deaths went completely unnoticed in the chaos. Upon reaching the last teller, he stuck his wand on its forehead and covered its mouth before roughly dragging it into the shadows. He then proceeded to stun the goblin and hid him in one of the banks many alcoves and issued another command into his communication gem. Before they could proceed with the next part of the operation, the main floor had to be purged of all life to ensure that no one managed to deactivate the wards and escape.

As one, he and his team jumped right back into the fray. The goblins and wizards found themselves surrounded, confused and exposed to a lethal barrage of spells. After the first few fell they reached a silent agreement to attack the new hidden enemy, realizing that they were undoubtedly the cause of the entire altercation. The man next to Dmitry collapsed, dead, an arrow protruding from his forehead. A hissing neon blue spell slammed into the centre of the goblins shredding at least ten of them in the resulting explosion. The wizards weren't playing around either, casting the most lethal curses they knew and often enough it was the green of the killing curse that slammed into the walls near his team. Dmitry gritted his teeth as he saw two more of his comrades fall, one to a wizard's cutting hex and the other to another goblin's arrow.

In retaliation Dmitry cast a spell he had only recently learned. With a complicated swish of his wand he exponentially decreased the pressure a few paces ahead of him. The few wizards who had thought to keep a weak shield on themselves were saved, the others blew up in a shower of blood and gore as the air in their lungs expanded past any sustainable limit. The windows shattered, unable to deal witht eh artificial pressure gradient. It marked a sudden, gruesome end to a battle that was decided almost before it started. The flying bones and shards of glass served as deadly spears, impaling many of those prudent enough to have shielded themselves. The wizards who weren't killed found themselves covered in blood, tissue and in some cases intestines, it was more than most could take as they fell to their knees and emptied their bowels on the already ruined marble floor. Incapacitated, they were easy targets and were finished off without too much of a fuss. The goblins found themselves in an utterly indefensible position as the wizards dropped like dominos, leaving their sides completely open.

Still not satisfied with the carnage, Dmitry ordered his team to move from body to body and decapitate each one. Simple, brutal, effective and necessary, it was easy to imagine someone pretending to be dead to save himself or herself. He moved towards the sole surviving goblin and enervated him, "_imperio_."

The goblin woke up to a feeling of euphoria, an angelic voice singing in its mind. '_Guide the nice man in front of you to Vault Two. He won't be there but a minute_.' It found itself unconsciously wanting to listen to the voice, to please it. "Please sir, come with me," it rasped, bowing low, shelving the traditional goblin arrogance in favor of making the voice happy.

"Raid the other vaults. Take as much gold as you can carry. You know how to deal with the dragons, assemble here as soon as I give the signal, our brothers are possibly dying out there, we do not have as much time as we would like." Dmitry turned on his heel and set off after the already disappearing goblin. They got onto a cart, and he waited as they descended deeper and deeper until they reached the very bottom, nearly a mile under sea level. This level contained the ten oldest vaults in Gringotts, dating back to 3100 BC, when Gringotts was still run by wizards. The level had a dragon but almost no other protection as none of the vaults had been accessed in centuries, the owners' families dying out or forgetting about its existence. The dragon stayed more or less silent as even though it felt foreign magic in the air, the goblin seemed to be leading Dmitry of his own volition. The others weren't as lucky as Dmitry and the furious roars of dragons echoed through the cavernous atrium that linked all of Gringotts' vaults.

After entering the vault the first thing he noticed was the smell. Everything smelt as ancient as it should, but he had never expected that age left behind such a strong odor. The vault was highly disorganized and items were wildly strewn about in the large room. There were swords, books, clothes, trinkets the variety seemed endless, as centuries' worth of possessions had piled up inside. Everything reeked of magic, having long since been saturated by Gringotts' ambient magic. He sighed, finding the book would not be easy.

His team reassembled on Gringotts' ground floor, their magically expandable sacks stuffed with golden galleons and the book safely nestled in Dmitry's robe. As he looked over the bloodbath in front of him, he gave his final order of the day. They painstakingly placed a single knut in every intact goblin mouth on the floor. This was again an imitation of one of Месть's crime scenes. In one of their first acts, they had robbed a bank and placed a bronze knut in every bank employee's mouth to mock their deaths. Dmitry's eyes finally fell on the goblin under his control, he ordered it to place a knut in its mouth and then canceled the spell. The goblin came back to its senses in time to feel a gust of wind a bright green light before everything went black.

He cast the simple charm and imaginary hammer struck its imaginary gong, the sound echoing in the bank and the alley outside. He waited a few seconds before casting the charm again, this time breaking the rune he had drawn on the floor, revealing the true nature of the bank to the outside world before he and his team apparated away. The last thought that crossed his mind as he left was that there was no way the British government would figure out that the true cause of all the violence was the inconspicuous book safely ensconced in his arms.

* * *

Before signing off, I'd like to urge everyone once more to review. It's not much work really, just click on that little button below.

While I'm not going to hold the story to ransom, reviews are vastly appreciated and will definitely speed up my writing - encouragement always helps after all :P


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